For Graduate SCA or AIA Applicants
Graduate Students applying to be SCAs or AIAs use a different application process than undergraduate students. The details of being an SCA or AIA are the same, but applications are submitted through a webform.
Please also read the notes especially for graduate students below.
(Coterms applying for SoCo, please use VCA if it allows you to log in.)
Special Considerations for Grad Students
Graduate students, please make sure that you have read the details if you are interested in applying to be an SCA or AIA. In addition, please be aware that:
- Department pre-approval is required for all positions. After you accept a place, we will contact your department to confirm that the SCA/AIA role can be combined with any obligations you have to the department. You may wish to check with your department SSO in advance. Stipends are paid through GFS and we will not be able to pay you without approval and cooperation from your department.
- SCA/AIA is an immersive commitment that does not allow for other commitments during the short-term immersive program—even personal obligations on weekends may present a conflict and should be discussed with faculty and the program director Dayo Mitchell before committing to the position.
- SoCo and Arts Intensive are residential programs. Although graduate students may have local housing during the summer, they are still required to live in the program residence with their students for the first two weeks of the program. Expect a single room in an undergraduate dorm, with the shower and a shared bathroom down the hallway. Although graduate students may live in San Francisco or Oakland or at a similar distance, they will nevertheless still be expected to be very present during the third week of the program after campus housing ends.
- Although graduate students are almost always over 21, they are nevertheless required to commit to the substance-free community within Sophomore College and Arts Intensive.
New to the Stanford Undergraduate Experience?
SoCo and Arts Intensive borrows many community-building techniques from the undergraduate experience at Stanford; while graduate SCAs may not be familiar with these, we will discuss them in SCA/AIA training before the start of the program. You may be interested in these articles for context on the undergraduate residential experience at Stanford:
Professional Development for Graduate Students
Serving as an SCA/AIA or as a Graduate Residential Associate can be excellent professional development for doctoral students or any grad student who expects to work in a university. The program introduces you to the wider world of undergraduate education and builds interpersonal and administrative skills as well as intellectual and pedagogical expertise. Programs similar to SoCo/Arts Intensive—either in their immersive short-term nature, or in the residential living-learning community aspect—are a significant movement in higher education, and being an SCA/AIA offers a compact introduction to these issues, and the beginnings of a network.